******************** This is a guest blog post by Lee Mather ********************

Day Two

After recharging the batteries, we had another early start for day and had as many sessions packed in as possible. I will try to provide a summary of key takeaways for each session. Please let me know if you would like any further detail as I’m happy to discuss.

This session focused on moving to a modern management for Windows and went into more detail than the session I attended on day 1. The main highlights were:

· Simplify deployment and device management with Intune and Windows Autopilot. Microsoft’s vision is for laptops and PCs to be as easy to setup as mobile phones. Microsoft 365 powered devices will benefit from the following

o Intelligent Security

o Easy deployment

o Always up to date

o Proactive insights with Windows Analytics

· A couple of slides which highlight the difference between traditional IT and modern IT

· There are a few paths to transition to modern management which has been expanded by the introduction of co-management. Co-management should be released by the end of the 2017 calendar year

******************** This is a guest blog post by Lee Mather ********************

So, after an eventful week in Orlando at Microsoft Ignite I thought I would share with you a summary of my first day! With over 26,000 attendees it was always going to be a busy event with lots going on, we would need a team here to take in all of the information being presented to us. I am hoping to have a chance to share the other days ASAP.

Day One

During the first day I attended several sessions and would like to share the following takeaways.

Keynote

The mission statement from Microsoft is to “Empower every person and every organisation to achieve more”

The keynote focused on digital transformation which is aligned to the four key areas below:

· Modern Workplace

· Business Applications

· Application & Infrastructure

· Data & AI

Following on from the keynote session, I had a day packed of sessions mainly focusing on creating a modern workplace.

Session 1: Create a modern workplace with Microsoft 365

The session focused on the following key areas:

· Flexibility to work on any device, anywhere

· Improvements to Office application including PowerPoint Designer using AI.

· Teamwork

o Microsoft Teams will be the hub for teamwork including chat, calls and meetings.

o Microsoft Teams will replace the Skype for Business client over the next year

Other worthwhile mentions from the session included Cortana Calendars. Cortana Calendars is a new feature that is currently in “Exclusive” preview but essentially this service will help intelligently schedule meetings on your behalf, simply by adding Cortana in the CC field. The service will support Office 365, Outlook.com or Google calendar. Additional information can be found here https://calendar.help/

“With the speed of artificial intelligence and the personal touch of a human assistant, Calendar.help takes care of business.”

The session also focused on the modern device management and deployment. Windows Autopilot will allow new device deployment in a few simple steps, straight from the vendor to your desk without involving IT. Working with Windows Autopilot and a device management solution such as Intune, the device will be deployed, Azure AD joined or Offline domain join to Active Directory, configured with all policies defined by IT and app deployment. More on this over the coming days.

Device Co-Management was also announced as a new feature, this is the “Hybrid” device management that will support a transition from System Centre Configuration Manager (SCCM) to Intune. Co-Management will allow a device to be managed by both SCCM and Intune allowing a gradual migration to modern management whilst supporting legacy devices and applications.

This session focused on accelerating a move to MDM and moving away from GPO to MDM policies. GPO has been around for years with many legacy policies in the workplace that may or may not be required today. Microsoft are continually releasing new device configuration policies to Intune. To support the migration away from GPO to MDM, the following PowerShell script can be executed that will output a report. https://github.com/WindowsDeviceManagement/MMAT

The tool is being regularly updated to align with new features available in Intune.

Session 3: Cloud infrastructure: Enabling new possibilities together

The Cloud Infrastructure session focused on using Azure for all workloads, big and small.

The session explained how you can setup a SAP HANA platform in minutes using Azure instead of weeks using on-premises hardware. Microsoft are continually providing more options for scaling in Azure, currently offering up to 20TB RAM for large SAP HANA deployments.